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Pomegranate juice maker to halt animal testing

NEW YORK – Pomegranate juice maker POM Wonderful, which became a target of animal rights activists because of research the company did into its juice's medical benefits, said Wednesday it has stopped testing on animals.

NEW YORK – Pomegranate juice maker POM Wonderful, which became a target of animal rights activists because of research the company did into its juice's medical benefits, said Wednesday it has stopped testing on animals.

"POM Wonderful pomegranate juice has ceased all animal testing and we have no plans to do so in the future," Lynda and Stewart Resnick, owners of POM parent company Roll International, wrote to all POM retailers by e-mail or post on Wednesday.

A copy of the letter was obtained by Reuters.

Whole Foods Market Inc. , the largest natural and organic grocery chain, said it had decided to stop selling POM Wonderful pomegranate juice and associated tea blends by April 1 if POM continued to fund studies that might include animal testing.

Whole Foods was not immediately available to comment on the POM letter and decision.

But also Wednesday, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals told Reuters it would not call off a boycott of POM drinks until it had an assurance that the Resnicks would not shift the animal testing to another entity they control.

Asked about such a possibility, a spokesman for POM directed Reuters to the letter, in which the company stated it will not sign a PETA petition saying POM has stopped funding animal research because the company will not be "bullied or extorted."

Last month, another animal rights group claimed it had tampered with 487 bottles of POM juice, prompting the No. 2 U.S. natural and organic grocer Wild Oats Markets Inc. to pull the product from shelves in some of its East Coast stores.

POM called the tampering claim "a cruel hoax" Wednesday and a Wild Oats spokeswoman said the grocery chain had already returned POM drinks to the shelves of the stores after testing showed that the products had not been tampered with.

"In our quest to discover how pomegranate juice can help treat human diseases and conditions such as arteriolosclerosis, prostate cancer, erectile dysfunction and birth defects, it was sometimes necessary to fund animal testing," POM said in the letter.

POM said human trials continue.

(With reporting by Jessica Wohl in Chicago and Alexandria Sage in Los Angeles)

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